 Searching for institutions: upgrading, private compliance, and due diligence in European apparel value chainsNikolaus Hammer Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2023, vol. 29, issue 3, 371-386 Abstract: This article argues that key avenues to improve working conditions – value chain integration, on the one hand, and lead firms’ compliance processes, on the other – have not resulted in improvements in the European apparel industry. Evidence is drawn from economic and social up-/downgrading trajectories in major apparel producing countries as well as a case study on social audits and labour market enforcement in the United Kingdom. Both suggest that institutions to prevent labour exploitation in supply chains have largely been ineffective. Institutional experimentation, which has been hybrid in combining hard and soft law as well as public and private governance elements, underlined the role of lead firms but continued to exclude civil society actors. It is argued that human rights due diligence, at the heart of many institutional experiments, draws on a deficient private compliance model, rather than building in worker-driven elements that could lead towards a better alternative. Keywords: Apparel value chain; social upgrading; social auditing; due diligence; labour market enforcement; worker-driven supply chain governance (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:treure:v:29:y:2023:i:3:p:371-386 DOI: 10.1177/10242589231194313 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research |
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